Public Health Care The Election Issue

If I Lie May My Nose Grow

Well King Ralph kind of said that about his intentions around Privatizing Health Care in Alberta, just in time for the Federal Election.

"I've got to be honest. You know, I can't tell a lie, because you (reporters) would be on my case. "So I'll explain exactly what we are doing (in terms of proposed health-care reforms)... the process that we are going through and I hope that people will understand that and I hope that the federal Liberals will not use it as political fodder." The comments were greeted with resignation within the federal Conservative party.” I’m disappointed, but I'm not surprised," said a senior Conservative organizer in Ontario.

Private health grist for election mill?

Klein expects issue to be raised on Eastern tour

James Baxter, The Edmonton Journal, Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Oh goodie we will finally find out what the Kings great but still secret plan is for Health Care reform. Cause ever since Bill 11 its been all about privatizing health care. So that’s six years that the volk in the Alberta Reich have waited for our glorious leader to let us know that the plan is. But the irony is that we will find out cause he intends to tell the ‘Eastern Bastards’ his plan. Sure, right, and I have a bridge in Southern Alberta for sale. He actually will tell them exactly what we know, that privatization is coming, soon, well actually after we get another study done, plus another conference, until we can fill a room with our experts who will say privatize or die trying, and well you get the picture. It ain’t happening, privatization is Alberta’s poison pill,agianst the Federal Government. Where it used to be oil, King Klein has made his Bunker Hill (pardon the pun), Health Care. He intends to privatize health care as he began back in 1995, though by no means as much as has been done in Quebec since that time. Even after Bill 11 the whole Klein Health Care agenda has been to see how far they can push privatization under the existing Canada Health Act. While tinkering here and there the whole Klein agenda has been about bluff and bluster. There have been lots of studies, conferences, studies, consultants, more conferences, focus groups, the Mazankowski Report, Report on Mazankowski, recommendations, recommendations shelved. And whenever a Health Care announcement like the Klein ‘Third Way’ is made, then it is studied to death, more focus groups, etc. And the plan is well so generalized you could read anything into it. And don’t be putting any wagers on it cause with a mere shift in the wind, a bit of a blast from editorial writers, a protest organized by Friends of Medicare, and finger to the wind the Klein Reich quickly goes about changing the offending comments, oh like personal medical accounts, and then sneaks it in the back door.

Such is the case with AON Consultants who got a rigged bid contract to look at privatizing Alberta Health Care, and low and behold if they had not presented the Klein Krew with a recommendation about personal medical accounts.

Should the Harper be worried? You betcha, so should Martin. Cause Health Care has become the single issue the NDP can claim the high ground on and actually make THE ELECTION ISSUE.

Harold Jansen, a political scientist at the University of Lethbridge, said Harper may not have much to fear from Klein's health-care plans this time around. He does not expect health care to be the hot-button issue it was in 2004. For the federal Liberals to attack Alberta, he said, they will also have to challenge moves toward privatization that Quebec and British Columbia have already made. "I think health care is more or less old news now. The difference is that the private health-care genie is now out of the bottle," he said, referring to the Supreme Court decision earlier this year that upheld a patient's right to pay for medical care to end suffering when waiting times are too long. "I think it would be hard (for Martin) to demonize Alberta."

And he would be wrong about it NOT being THE Election issue. It will be, because it is the Liberals Achilles heel, without it they cannot entice soft social democrats, red liberals, with the boogeyman of the Conservatives. And as the polls show its going to be another minority government, or at least could be if the NDP get enough votes. To do that they have to make the Privatization of Health Care the issue. It’s what differentiates them from the Liberals. They gave the Liberals the chance to challenge the Supreme Court ruling by amending the Canada Health Act. And the Liberals blew it, they called the bluff , read the polls and figured they could chance a Christmas election.

The NDP attack on the Liberals last election over this was muted by the demonizing of the Harper by the Liberals. They played their trump card about Harpers secret agenda for Health Care. Sorry can’t use that again, because as Jansen says the cat is out of the bag, privatization of health care is the political reality today in Canada and the Liberals are no more prepared to confront it than the Tories are.

If it was only Klein the Federal Liberals would confront the issue, using Alberta as their whipping boy. But they can’t because Quebec sets the Federal Agenda, and is on the road to privatization as well. Asymmetrical privatization of health care is the Liberals downfall, as it is the Harpers. Harper has Klein as his albatross, Martin has Quebec. It is here where the Liberals cut down by Adscam, cannot risk challenging their provincial cousins. Nor can they afford to give the BQ and PQ anymore ammunition to use against them. In this case any attack on Quebec’s privatization of medical services would leave them open to accusations of interference in Quebec’s affairs.

The NDP on the other hand have no qualms about imposing a federalist solution where it is warranted. They did this with the NEP in Alberta in the 1980’s and could use Health Care as the issue on which to impose a Federalist model that would offend both Quebec and Alberta, but not their supporters or soft left Liberals or even Red Tories.

To do that the NDP has to make the Canada Health Act the issue, amending it, strengthen it, attaching strings to Federal Funding, all in the name of ending the biggest loophole in the Act, that it fails to mention privatization.

By making the issue strengthening the Canada Health Act to end privatization they can appeal that it can be done asymmetrically as each province has violated the Act in uncommon ways. That is services that are privatized are sufficiently different in each province that a federal act ending privatization would impact differently in B.C. than in Quebec, or Alberta, or PEI.

The Liberals made NAFTA the issue in the 1988 election and stole the show from the NDP. Last election Martin made Health Care the eleventh hour issue to differentiate the Liberals from Harpers Conservatives. This time this issue for the Liberals, Tories and Bloc is Gomery and Adscam. It’s an issue that the NDP left to the other opposition parties to pick the flesh off the bones of the Liberals.

Instead they have made the Democratic Deficit the issue, as well as health care and the environment. In the upcoming election Health Care is issue number one for the NDP. It’s why they cannot support the current Liberal regime. Then to deal with Gomery it’s their ethics package. Even the issue of Aboriginal Self Government, can be covered with the Broadbent Ethics package. And unlike the Liberals the NDP could make the seque to Aboriginal Self Government, while the Liberals are the party of the Department of Indian Affairs.

Finally with the climate change conference happening during the first weeks of the Election, the environment, Jacks personal peccadillo takes centre stage.

The NDP could not ask for a better time or a better election to actually make real gains in seats. Its there’s to lose. And they won’t if they make Health Care, Ethics, and the Environment their issues. Leaving the infighting to the other three.